Bob Hayes Online

Hilarious.

explained.

This is just kind of weird: sketches of Disney characters done by Adolf Hitler.

What the hell category do I even put this item in?

This is a triple tragedy. If her suicide note is accurate, then this woman was badly served by the abortion culture. Not that this should be a shock.

A couple weeks ago, 3rd of 3 developed a high fever. Stoic dad wanted to let her gut it out on the couch, and save a few hundred dollars. Soppy mom insisted that she go to the ER (it was 9 PM). Guess who won that one.

The ER said she was coming down with a virus, beat them what it was because she didn’t have any other symptoms. They gave her Tylenol to get the fever down and recommended advanced medical treatments like keeping her comfortable and giving her plenty to drink. I brought her home a couple of hours later, having successfully shielded her from comprehending why the streetwalker in the next room was slurring her speech and talking about it hurting to pee.

A few days ago, we get the bill from the ER doctor. (I don’t know why, but this hospital separates the bills out, one for the ER itself, one for the doctor you end up seeing.) It was $204 – more than I want to pay, but in line with historical experience. I waited for the ER bill, which in the past has been around $100.

Today we get the ER bill. $1540. But, because the hospital loves us and wants to work with our financial situation, if we pay them by the 19th of March they’ll take 40% off, leaving it around 900 something. Cue my head exploding, wife quietly freaking, chaos reigning supreme.

So I get on the phone with the nice, calm lady at Centura who, I suspect, gets about fifty of these “wtf?” calls a day. She says the $1500 is for the ER service, is not a mistake, and that she can’t give me an itemized bill over the phone because of privacy regulations. But she can send me one – it will take a mere two business weeks to arrive. In the meantime, they want their money.

(Which, yeah. That’s going to happen. I wouldn’t pay $1500 for a whole child, let alone one ER visit. I won’t pay $1.50 to someone who hasn’t yet billed me.)

So a few questions for the hive mind.

1) Has something happened in the year since she last went to the ER, that the customary walk-through-the-door charge has increased fifteen-fold?

2) What’s my legal recourse here? In my surly 20-something days, I would have laughed and tell them to f*** off, and good luck collecting. (And the next time I visit the ER, it will be as Raoul Rodriguez, and try to prove different.) But these days I’m trying to buy a house, and trying to make all the red lines on the credit report read yellow or green instead.

3) Anybody got $1500 lying around they don’t need? (Oh, well, $950 if you can get it to me by 3/19.)

4) How is it possible for a commercial enterprise to legally demand money from people without presenting an itemized bill? (Technically, it’s not a demand. It’s an OFFER. That seems like thin cheese; if I were a judge in petty court I’d throw it out post-haste.)

5) WTF? I mean, what the F-ing F?

A fascinating roundup of evolutionary science posts relating to intelligent design and evolution over at EO. The compiler is an informed agnostic on the subject; I could stretch out linking to the 33 things he links to (another month of free blogging! Woot!) but I’ll just point you to the mother lode.

Liberal feel-good theology gets slammed onto the sidewalk in this powerful scene from “ER”. And we’re reminded what religion is here for in the first place.

No matter whether it’s Obama, Clinton, McCain, or even the Huck – some things aren’t going to change. The only one I can see to disagree with is #8 – it is possible that we could make the mistake of abandoning Israel as an ally.

H/T Evangelical Outpost.

For years, I’ve assumed that the reason that the music sucks in Catholic services was that some previous Pope had lost a bet with our Protestant brethren. I was never sure of the details – it’s a hierarchy, after all – but it was fairly obvious that we had agreed: any Catholics showing musical talent would be pointed towards the Protestants instead, so that there would never be good music in a Catholic church.

Now we see it was actually a cunning plan – turns out good church music may undermine the experience over time by raising unrealistic expectations. Those Popes, they’re clever ones.

H/T Evangelical Outpost.

Damn. I remember a lot of these ancient video games – not usually from having them, but from seeing them in stores, in Sears catalogues, and such like. I had the advantage of a father with an electronics background; he wasn’t averse to getting us these kinds of games, but he also pushed me in the direction of computers. Not that it took much of a push!

Via TwentySided.